Coast Guard Budget Would Fund 1st New Heavy Icebreaker in 40 Years

The Coast Guard finds itself in a significantly different budget environment this year -- not only is the service requesting a sizeable bump in funding, the money would help pay for its first new heavy icebreaker in 40 years. The service asked for a total of about $11.7 billion in funding for fiscal 2019, an increase of $979 million, or 8.4 percent, over its previous request, according to a document released Monday as part of President Donald Trump's budget request. Last year, by comparison, the service faced a $1.3 billion cut before launching a massive and ultimately successful public relations campaign to underscore its importance to national security despite being the smallest of the U.S. military services and the only one to fall under the Department of Homeland Security rather than the Defense Department. The additional money for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 woul...